The Rare Air of LeBron James

LeBron James wasn't even at his best Sunday, but he still put on a show in Miami's 14th straight win.
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He ran off with all of the oxygen. This is what he can do on the road, and it is both hilarious and a little cruel. There were still 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter of Sunday's game between the Miami Heat and the New York Knicks, and the Knicks had played very well, stretching the lead to 16 at one point, but the whole time it felt as if LeBron James held this game on a tether, one of those clever, retractable versions you see curbing schnauzers in the park. Miami had won 13 in a row and James was playing perhaps the best basketball of his career, and though the first-place Heat had failed to beat New York this season…come on. Did anyone think James would never yank this game back into his possession?

Then he did it. Ziiipppp. A three-pointer followed by a second three-pointer, both from the top of the key, the vainest way to shoot basketball's vainest shot. The game was tied. Madison Square Garden, cocksure for two hours, went dead. There was still a lot of basketball left, but this had become Miami's matinee, and James ruthlessly pressed on the pedal. With four minutes left, he blocked a shot by Knicks center Tyson Chandler and slipped down the court, tipping in a miss by teammate Mario Chalmers to give the Heat a six-point lead. In the final seconds, James clunked a jumper, and the Knicks had a chance to make it intriguing, but at midcourt, James intercepted a foolish pass by New York guard J.R. Smith, and was met by seductive, open floor. Later, sitting in the locker room, knees wrapped, his feet submerged in a cooler of ice, James admitted he was tantalized by the options for an airborne exclamation point—New York, national TV, no defender, oh what to do?—before settling for a modest commuter flight, a conventional right-handed slam. "I was going to windmill that," James said. Caution had won. "Let me get two," he explained. "And get up out of here."

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It was still a thrill. And you couldn't help but think that the result wasn't terrible for Knicks fans, that as much as they came to see their team win, they'd wound up witnessing the other thing they'd hoped to witness, which was basketball's greatest player in his greatest basketball-playing prime. This James output (29 points, 11 rebounds, seven assists) was not a masterpiece, not even close. But it was still the NBA's best show, a reason this early afternoon ticket was The Ticket, and further evidence that James, now 28 and in possession of that elusive title ring, is writing a thrilling next chapter.

The assumption is that this James is an unburdened James, and this assumption is brought to you by the same consensus that decided James was ambivalent in the 2010 playoffs and treasonous in 2010-11 and vengeful in 2011-12. Like most assumptions, it is both true and untrue, and it works, because it serves a pleasing narrative: the superstar who has met expectations. But it also resembles the final stage of denial. James has been the best player in basketball for a long time, winner of three of the last four most valuable player awards, and the uproar that met his move from Cleveland to Miami, which was shrilly and rooted in some Mesozoic idea of the obligations of professional athletes, had zero to do with his talent on the court. Yes, a title helped. Yes, James is statistically taking his game to a new level. But some of this recent rapture sounds like overdue acceptance. LeBron's World? This has been LeBron's World for a while.

But there is genuine appreciation, and James, so focused his first two seasons in Miami, is (carefully) readmitting people into (a manicured version of) his inside world. Who has yet to see the sunny Samsung commercial in which a doting James pours Lucky Charms for his young sons, drives past celebrating Miami kids in a steroidal Jeep and pops into the Escobar Barber Shop for a triumphant cut? This breezy piece of lifestyle propaganda is the exact opposite of what sports commercials typically are—usually, they're sweaty, grim-faced mission statements about determination and victory. By contrast, this James commercial was a delicious fruit smoothie, set to the Impressions' song "Keep on Pushing," an exquisite civil-rights anthem now used to convey a message of personal fulfillment. The meaning was clear: LeBron James is thriving. Sorry, haters. James continues to update his Twitter feed with an enviable stream of asides and images: commutes to school with his kids; conclaves with Jay-Z; waterfront French toast at his oceanside manse. It is a wide life viewed through a keyhole. But the view is impeccable.

This is where James lives. In the locker room Sunday he talked levelheadedly about the game and the Knicks and his own performance. "I always categorize my play by the team's success," he said. He said the Heat do not look ahead—"We don't play games before they're scheduled"—but it's hard not to take a pen and firmly write M-I-A-M-I into a third consecutive NBA finals. Of course, because we're a hopeless species, there's also been extravagant speculation that when James's run in Miami is done, his road may wind its way back to Cleveland for an emotional epilogue. All of it sounds brilliant and irresistible and maybe even feasible, because basketball belongs to LeBron James. He is not the enemy. He never was. He is the oxygen.

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